


Leverage

by bomberqueen17



Category: Fall of Ile-Rien - Martha Wells, WELLS Martha - Works
Genre: Boundaries, F/M, Sex and Chocolate, Ships of Air, mid-book, no actual chocolate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:12:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the middle of Ships of Air-- Ilias makes good on Tremaine's promise of using chocolate to bribe him for sex. <br/>Kind of a post-marriage Getting To Know You dealie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leverage

Ilias woke slowly from a deep sleep, surfacing a breath at a time into consciousness. When he was awake enough to remember his body, he stretched luxuriously, inhaling a deep breath. The smell told him he was on the _Ravenna_ ; the feel of the tightly-woven soft sheets against his skin told him he was in one of the beds in the suite Tremaine had commandeered for them. He didn't remember getting into bed. Somebody had tucked him in, though he'd no idea whether it had been Tremaine or Giliead.

He yawned and rolled over onto his back. There was the faintest twinge in his ribs, reminding him of the Gardier's boots, but another breath and it was almost gone. The only real reminder of his injuries was a lingering feeling of lassitude. A moment's cold thought arrested his hands as he raised them toward his face: the memory of Giliead's terse profile and bitter voice after Gerard had asked if he could use a spell to heal Ilias. _Go ahead. What does it matter?_ They were so thoroughly saturated with curses now that there was little point in even making the token gesture of trying to avoid them.

Ilias rubbed his face and sighed heavily. There was no point worrying, either. He rolled over onto his other side, looking blearily out into the room. He touched his nose, remembering that it had been hurt too. It seemed fine now. Well, as fine as it ever was. It had been broken a few times, so surely once more hadn't had much effect. He wondered if the healing had lightened the bruises or if he still looked as ridiculous as he had. 

It was then that he remembered that Tremaine had chased Pasima and the others out of the suite. She'd been magnificent. Ilias would long treasure the look on Pasima's face when she had realized that she had absolutely no leverage over Tremaine whatsoever.

Not a lot of people had any kind of leverage over Tremaine Valiarde. 

Ilias was still grinning when he heard the door opening. "--check," Tremaine was saying softly. She came backwards through the door without opening it all the way, and closed it behind herself before she turned around. Ilias gave a fleeting consideration to pretending to be asleep to see whether she'd try to wake him, but dismissed it. 

"Oh good," she said softly, still almost whispering, when she saw him looking at her. She came over and sat on the edge of the bed, so close he could smell the soap she must've used recently. Her hair was slightly damp. He wanted to put his face in the crook of her neck and smell her and feel the dampness: her skin would be so soft just out of the bath. He rolled over onto his back to look up at her. "How do you feel?" she asked.

He started to make a wry expression but yawned instead, and when he looked at her he couldn't be sure whether he'd seen her have a flicker of regret for asking the question. She understood, then, about how much he and Giliead were dreading having to face the god reeking of curses as they did. But he'd known she understood. He knew it hadn't been easy for her to ask Gil to use the crystal. 

"Fine," he said. "A little hungry maybe."

She smiled, and brushed the hair back from his forehead with her fingers, looking fond of him. "I was just coming to see if you wanted anything," she said. "The kitchen volunteers brought up some food for dinner."

"Is it that late?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Probably around six o'clock," she said. She could see that meant nothing to him. "The sun's pretty low but won't set for another hour or so."

He nodded. "Good," he said. 

"Why, did you have somewhere you had to be?" she asked. 

He shrugged. "Just don't like to sleep the whole day away," he said.

She laughed, a quiet motion of air through her nose the only real sound it made, and traced her fingers along his jaw. "Me neither," she said, "but I slept most of today as well. It's nice once in a while. You were out like a light. I don't think you moved all day."

Ilias idly pondered how a light could be the thing that defined the concept of 'out' before losing interest in the question, and instead raised his hand to capture hers where she was pulling it away from his face. Her fingernails were almost bloody, they'd been bitten down so far, and he considered them a moment before looking up to her face.

"Bad habit," she said, a little self-consciously. "So do you want something to eat? They've sent up some pretty good stuff. They have those potatoes you like so much."

"Know what I want?" Ilias said, suddenly seized by an impulse more than mischievous. He rubbed the tips of his fingers along the webbing of hers and looked up into her face with a wicked grin.

"What?" she asked, a little surprised.

He let go of her hand and stretched again. He saw her eyes go to the ring on the thong around his neck, her ring, the ring that had probably saved his life. All of their lives. "You said you'd give me chocolates," he said. 

For a moment she looked perplexed. The blush that rose across her face like the dawn as she remembered her earlier promise was exceedingly gratifying. "Oh," she said. "Right. Chocolates. Well, I..." She looked around, as if expecting to find a pile of them by the bed, but he knew she was buying time to frame an answer. It pleased him to have flustered her so. "I was saving them, you realize."

"I know," he said. "And I am fully prepared to hold up my end of the deal."

She eyed him, one eyebrow twitching, and ran her teeth over her lower lip. "I see," she said. 

"You'd see better from closer range," he said, and pulled her over onto the bed with one easy reach of his arm. She stifled a sound that might have been a giggle, and made absolutely no attempt to resist as he rolled to trap her under the blankets with him. He put enough of his weight on her to keep up the pretense of restraining her, feeling the softness of her breasts through the light Syprian shirt she was wearing, and put his face into the crook of her neck, between her damp hair and her neck. 

She wriggled a little, ticklish, and he sighed and raised his head to kiss her mouth. She returned the kiss, and this time when she wriggled it was to align her body closer to his. He moved his arm around her to pull her tighter against him, and she freed her hand from the tangle of the sheets to rub it across his back. She lingered a moment over the thick parallel scars, and he fought the urge to twitch. She sensed it anyway, and moved her hand down a little further. Ilias hadn't quite expected her to pinch his buttock quite so firmly, and he raised his head to look at her.

"That sort of thing will cost you extra," he said, but he couldn't help grinning.

"Hmph," Tremaine said. "This is bribery, not prostitution."

He wasn't sure what the distinction in meaning implied, so he sat up a little to take her shirt off. The Syprian blouse gave him no trouble, but she was wearing that thing underneath, the odd assemblage of stretchy frills and bits of metal that had so puzzled him on previous occasions. She lay still a moment, laughing at the expression on his face. 

"I hate that thing," he muttered. "I should charge you extra to unfasten it."

"I'll just get it myself then," she said, reaching behind herself with a deft manoever. It came unfastened with a soft pop. "You don't have to learn if you don't want. But I promise you there's no curses involved."

Ilias sighed, leaning over so she wouldn't see his face: he didn't feel like dragging the mood down. But she put an arm around him, embracing him in a more comforting than sexual manner. "Sorry," she said. "Not funny."

"Funny later, maybe," he said, recovering enough to pull the shoulder straps of the annoying garment down. "Mm," he said in a moment, putting his face between her breasts in a very welcome change of subject. "Boobs."

She laughed. "Very good," she said. "Do you know the Rienish word?"

"There are undoubtedly several words," he said. "And I expect that, through practice, I will learn them all."

"There's a good fellow," she said, caressing his neck as he nuzzled at her breasts. "That's the spirit of adventure."

"More of my adventures should involve more boobs," he said. 

She sighed, and unfastened her trousers. "Mine are at your disposal," she said. "Just let me know if you need them. I bring them everywhere I go."

"Handy," he said, taking over the difficult task of extricating her from the trousers. He pulled them off with a fluid motion and dumped them unceremoniously off the end of the bed before returning his hand to the waistband of her sole remaining garment. He was not used to this sort of thing either; it was stretchy and frilly like the other garment that constrained her breasts, but at least this one didn't have a fastener. It just slipped off. He tugged at it and she moved her hips, moaning a little as he pulled her body close against his and kissed her mouth. 

He worked the last garment down her leg until she wriggled free. It caught around her foot and she kicked a little, sending it flying across the room. He ignored it, although he heard her giggle. It was odd to hear a giggle in the same voice that had ordered Pasima out. Ilias decided he rather liked it when she giggled. 

"Oh," she said softly, as he moved his hand up between her thighs. She smelled strongly of soap, of some kind of artificial flowers, and it mingled with the faint scent of her body in a heady way. She wriggled a little, bending a knee and rearranging herself so he could reach her better. He kissed her neck and moved his fingers to gently explore what that last garment had been hiding.

She smelled good, so good he couldn't get enough. He sat up. "I'd better make that bribe worth your while," he said, looking down into her face. She quirked an eyebrow at him, amused but skeptical, and he could see the faintest trace of hardness in her eyes suggesting that the joke about buying sex had been covering something sensitive. She'd been strange about the marriage price too. Maybe he'd better take it easy on that particular joke lest he hurt her feelings the way she'd hurt his.

"Oh," she said, as he moved to nuzzle at her thigh, and her tone of voice suggested that this was very much the right thing to do. He ran his fingers through the little thatch of her pubic hair, remembering his relief upon seeing it the first time-- something _normal_ under all these strange garments-- and bent down to put his mouth on her. "Oh I will get you all the chocolate you want," she said a little breathlessly, and he laughed before putting his arm around her leg to pull her into a better position. He teased apart the delicate folds of her labia with his tongue, and she hummed in delighted pleasure. The slight bitter taste of the soap residue still on her skin dissipated quickly, leaving him with only her salty-sweet taste. In a few moments he was sure enough of her to use his hand, too, rubbing more firmly and sliding one finger into her. She moaned a little, very quietly, her thigh trembling a little against his cheek. In a second she moaned again, a little louder, but bit it off halfway through, and he felt her tense a little. Sparing a glance, he noticed her face was flushed and her hair disarranged, and she was looking toward the door in either distress or annoyance. He wondered who was even still out there, with Pasima and her minions gone.

"So what if they hear you?" he took a brief moment to say, and she laughed breathlessly.

"They'll tease me," she said.

"So?" He shrugged and gave up on talking in favor of more constructive uses of his tongue. She wriggled and made an endearing little noise, flexing her spine as he evidently did something just right. He repeated the gesture experimentally, and noted with satisfaction that she made the noise again. A few more repetitions and she was wound up tight as a bowstring, trembling a little and breathless. He hummed in pleasure, tightening his grip on her hip to pull her harder against him. The smell of her, the taste, the heat was intoxicating. She was the pure animal embodiment of woman, the temple of a cult of one. 

"God," she gasped, using the Rienish word, "Ilias," and then she used several words he didn't really know. Except that one sounded rather like a word she said when she was angry. She was quite obviously not angry now. She made another sound that didn't sound like a word at all. Ilias kept up his efforts, hopeful: he hadn't managed to bring her to a climax yet in the few times they'd been together. She'd been too self-conscious, too nervous, too in-control, and he hadn't been able to get through that. But she was more vulnerable now, and he was determined this time.

A tremor went through the long muscles of her thighs, and she twined her fingers through his hair. "Ilias," she gasped. "Oh God. Come here." She tugged at his hair.

"You want me to stop?" he asked, surprised as she pulled him away. He kept moving his hand, wanting badly not to stop.

"I want you to start," she said breathlessly, tugging at him. He looked blankly at her for a moment and she moved her hand down and realized he was still wearing his trousers. She cursed absently, and managed to unfasten them with one hand. He understood, and yanked them out of the way. She put her hands impatiently on him, grabbing his bicep with one hand and his hip with the other. "I need you--"

"Yeah," he said, "I get it," breathless with a sudden heart-pounding excitement, and moved up. She made a desperate, strangled little noise as he positioned himself above her, his elbows under her shoulders, her thighs sliding smoothly along his hips. Her hand was between them, guiding him into place, and he caught his breath. 

"Yes," she said distractedly, and he hesitated, not quite inside her yet. She made the desperate little noise again, and he looked seriously down into her face until she blinked and saw him. "Ilias," she said, moving a hand from his shoulder to his face. He lowered his head and kissed her deeply, hungrily, and pushed hard enough to finally slide into her.

Her deep, shuddering cry was muffled by his mouth, but he felt her whole body shake. Her fingers twined in the fine hairs at the base of his neck, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He began to move slowly, rocking gently with her, and the breath from her nose gusted warmly around his face as she panted for breath without releasing his mouth.

He was the one to finally break their kiss, needing more air than he could get that way. He wasn't working that hard, but he was still weak. He rested his forehead against her cheek, then nibbled gently at her neck where it met her shoulder. Such a fine and delicate neck she had. Much better to pay attention to that than to think about injuries and curses and... He nibbled at the soft skin just above her collarbone with a determined effort, feeling the pulse of her blood under his tongue. She writhed beneath him, releasing the back of his neck to run a hand down his back, the other hand twining around his arm. She was breathing in great deep gasps, a little of her voice resonating in every exhalation, and it pleased Ilias obscurely that she didn't seem to care anymore that the sound would surely carry enough to the next room for it to be apparent what was going on in here. He was doing very well, it seemed.

Encouraged, he moved a little faster, and was rewarded by her catching her breath to release it in a moan. She tightened the grip of her thighs on his hips, and flexed her spine a little to move against him. The effect was distracting, to say the least; her soft, yielding flesh had him in a slick, tight grip now, and he bit his lip and bent his head to stifle an indiscreet vocalization of his own against her shoulder.

His movement brought down the last unravelling remnants of his queue, and his hair fell down in a curtain around their faces. It was none too clean; he shook his head to get it away from his face, but to no avail. Tremaine laughed and grabbed a handful of it, twisting it away from his eyes. Her fist, tangled in his hair, came to rest behind his ear, and she pulled his face down to kiss him. 

He had meant to say her name, but only the central consonant came out, muffled against her lips, in a drawn-out _mmmm_. She made a sound that could have been a laugh or a gasp, and he opened his eyes (had they been closed?) to look into her face. She was regarding him with distracted, pleased amusement, her lips curved and mouth slightly open, cheeks flushed and eyes glittering distantly, but aware of him. She looked as though she might be collecting herself. Ilias ducked his head, bringing his face down to hers again, and when she kissed him, he bit her lip, driving into her more forcefully. She made a high-pitched, helpless sound and bore down against him. He felt her fingers scrabble for purchase on his shoulder but slip, sliding bloodlessly down his back, and he knew that if she'd had any fingernails left at all that would've hurt quite a lot. 

Her lip slid out from between his teeth and she threw her head back with a breathless exclamation. She arched her back, her whole body stiff and vibrating with tension, her inner muscles clamped down tightly around him. He gripped her shoulders firmly to keep the leverage he needed to maintain the pace and force of his thrusts into her. She went still a moment, silent and unbreathing, before she suddenly gave a sharp cry and bucked against him, her fingers twisting in his hair and her whole body shuddering violently. 

_Yes,_ Ilias thought, a little incoherently, and dazedly bit her shoulder as she whimpered, shivering. He slowed his movement, and then stopped, thinking she might need a moment. She had her face in his neck, beside her fistful of hair, and was gasping for breath. He kissed her shoulder, repenting of biting it, and waited for her to say or do something. 

"Tremaine," he said softly, nuzzling at her. His blood was pounding hard and he couldn't tell whether she were still shaking. Her inner muscles had loosened their grip the slightest bit, but she was exquisitely soft now, warm and inviting, and it was all he could do to keep from picking up where he'd just left off. But she was still gasping, or breathing strangely, or--

She was sniffling. He raised his head with a sudden stab of anxiety: had he hurt her somehow? But it was-- what had just happened was unmistakable. That couldn't have been anything but an orgasm. "Tremaine," he said softly, nuzzling at her ear, "what--"

She shook her head, her shoulders shaking, and in a minute she turned her head to look up at him. She was smiling, although there were still tears rolling down her face. "Ilias," she whispered, "I just had to--" She broke off and pulled his face down to kiss him again, less deeply and more tenderly than before. She tasted of salt tears, a little, but common sense reminded Ilias that he'd seen Tremaine hurt rather badly indeed and that hadn't made her cry. Surely he hadn't hurt her. "Mmm," she sighed, recovering herself, "where were we?"

"Here," he answered absently, and licked at the tears on the cheek closer to him. She laughed, but gave a little shiver, belying her apparent self-possession. 

"If I read the signs aright you hadn't finished," she said, undulating her body beneath him with an almost playful expression. He closed his eyes at the sensation as she moved herself along his length. She was making him a bit dizzy.

"Ha," he said, "but a woman is never finished," and he raised his head to look straight into her face. He shifted position a little, moving to put a hand either side of her face and hold her head still so he could brush his lips delicately over hers, breathing her breath. He began to move his hips gently, rocking with her again in a softer rhythm. Little by little he deepened the kiss, tasting her lips, caressing her teeth with his tongue, holding her jaw in place to keep her from responding aggressively. At first she closed her eyes, but then she raised her lashes just enough to watch him with an unfocused but intimate gaze. 

He had never made a woman cry in bed before, and the thought distracted him for a moment as he pressed his tongue flat against hers. Her tongue fluttered but then was still: she was waiting to see what he would do. He pulled back to lick at her lower lip again, maintaining the gentle rocking motion of his body with hers. She wriggled ever so slightly, her breath gusting unevenly from her nose in a soundless whimper. 

"Such a tease," she whispered, closing her eyes as he pulled back to brush her lips with his. 

"Were you in a hurry?" he asked, pulling back far enough that he could look at her. She opened her eyes, and smiled.

"I suppose not," she said. "But you-- oh--" He interrupted her with a more forceful thrust, and put his mouth on hers again. She moaned a little again, undulating beneath him and wrapping her legs around his, hooking her knees over the backs of his thighs and running one slightly cold foot down the back of his calf, pushing down the trousers still around his legs. 

"Mm," he said, "better?"

"More," she answered, and pushed his hair back from their faces with both hands while pulling his face down to kiss him deeply. He held the kiss for a moment but he couldn't keep up this kind of motion without breathing deeper, and had to raise his head again, again careful not to think about why he was so tired. She gazed up at him, pink-cheeked and disheveled and both pleased and vulnerable. She looked young, and it struck Ilias that she certainly wasn't as old as she acted. She was certainly younger than he was. 

Suddenly overcome by tenderness, he slowed his movements and lowered his head again, nuzzling at her cheek. He wanted to whisper endearments to her, sweet nothings and the like, but she wasn't the sweet-nothings type of girl. He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't strike her as a waste of breath. He settled on her name, and she sighed in pleasure. _Good_ , he thought, as that was rather the effect he'd been looking for. Talking sweet to her would probably just make her nervous, as it didn't seem anybody ever did it to her sincerely.

He wanted to protect her, which was a pointless impulse at this juncture. How many times had she saved his life? It wasn't even possible to keep count, by now. Which was just as well: Ilias well knew he couldn't have anyone in his family who couldn't protect herself. But the impulse was still there, and he held her tightly, resting his forehead against hers. 

She sighed, and put her arms around his neck. "Are you all right?" she asked in a hoarse brush of voice over her soft rush of breath. She was breathing hard too, Ilias noted with some satisfaction: he wasn't so weak after all.

"Better," he said, but his chest was a little tight. Her tears had moved him more than he'd thought, he supposed.

She moved her hands to his cheeks, holding his head a moment in what was almost a caress, before she moved her hands to his shoulders. He didn't realize that she was gathering her strength until she'd given him a hard shove with both hands, accompanied by a twist of her hips, and rolled him over so that she was on top of him. He blinked in surprise at how effective her movement had been, but before he could collect himself enough to comment, she'd straddled him and had impaled herself again on his erection. He grunted in astonished pleasure.

"You shouldn't be exerting yourself yet," she said, frowning in mock-sternness before she rendered him speechless by beginning to move.

"Ungh," he said, the closest thing he could manage to an intelligent answer. She grinned wickedly, seizing his waist between her thighs and sitting up. Her hair was disarranged, standing up in wild curls and drifts, and with the expression of delighted mischief lighting up her face, she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen. He put his hands on her thighs, admiring the way her breasts swung as she moved. They really were perfect-- a generous handful, but not so much that they got in the way. She didn't need that ugly lacy thing to hold them, though. They held themselves just fine. He could hold them even better. He reached up to touch one, pleased by the soft weight of it in his hand, and she bit her lip and smiled at him as he brushed his thumb over the pink nipple. 

"Mm," she said, sitting up straighter and raising her hands to push her hair back. He moved as much as he could without straining himself beneath her, and she shivered a little, letting her head fall back and arching her back. He grabbed her hips to pull her more firmly against himself: the angle from her new position meant that he was very deeply inside her, and it was making him want to fuck her much harder than this tantalizing playing around. She gave a little shiver at his motion, and ground her pelvis against him. His eyes rolled back a little and he groaned involuntarily. He couldn't collect enough self-possession to fuck her that hard, the way she was taking him. 

"Ilias," she grunted, her breath hissing between her teeth as she shifted her weight, clenching her thighs to move herself dizzyingly along his length. He gripped her waist but lay nearly still, letting her ride him at her own pace. The muscles of his side were still weak, or he would have sat up to put his mouth on her breasts. As it was he contented himself with lying flat and gazing unfocusedly up at them as they rose and fell with her movements. 

She was trembling again, and he didn't think it was from exertion. One of her hands found his on her thigh, and she twined her fingers around his. She let her head fall forward, keeping her back arched slightly backward, and he looked up into the wild fall of hair around her face and saw that her eyes were closed, her mouth open. She made another of her desperate little whimpering sounds.

"Tremaine," he said, gritting his teeth as a tingling energy began to gather at the base of his spine, at the back of his neck, in his extremities, making his motions uneven and his breath uncontrollable. 

"Yes," she said, opening her eyes and staring straight through his face. She gave a little shiver, then cried out as if startled. Her body shuddered, and she cried out again, a little softer and more drawn-out, her spine abruptly losing its rigid arch and letting her bend down. She clutched at his shoulders, looking wildly into his face as she shuddered again. This time he could feel the rhythmic spasms inside her body, clenching tightly along his length.

Ilias couldn't stop this time. He gripped her hips tightly, thrusting forcefully into her with a driven, animal instinct. She let out soft gasping little cries with every thrust, bending further over him and holding herself up unsteadily by her hands on his shoulders. He tried to worry that he might be being too rough with her but he couldn't think, couldn't muster the attention to do anything but fuck her, driven by the tingling sparks that had now built to an unendurable point in his spine. Abruptly the invisible dam holding them back broke, and they sloshed in waves and surges through his body. He made a helpless strangled noise and twitched, burying himself inside her as his vision was blotted out by the sparks. 

 

In a moment he was aware of his breathing again, and opened his eyes. Tremaine's face hung just over his, her hair in wild disarray and her eyes fixed absently on a point just above his shoulder. His whole body was throbbing, little tingling waves of pleasure still zinging wonderfully up and down his spine. 

She met his gaze and smiled, mouth open as she caught her breath. He lay still, catching his own breath, admiring the pink flush that had crept across her cheeks and her breasts. She sighed. "Ilias," she said, sounding fond and, oddly, a little self-conscious. 

"I'm getting better at this husband thing," he said. She laughed and looked away, suddenly almost shy. It seemed strange, to be shy around someone whose body was still more or less joined to yours, but he realized that she wasn't used to being this vulnerable.

He pushed himself up on his elbow and caught her around the back of the neck, pulling her with gentle insistence down to kiss him again. She sighed, caressing his face. Her fingers lingered over the curse mark for a second before she abruptly moved on, and he knew she hadn't recognized what it was at first. She was canny enough that she wouldn't have called attention to it otherwise. He supposed the least he could do was pretend not to notice. 

It felt odd when she touched it. 

She pulled away, rubbing a thumb across his lip with a preoccupied air, and he sighed as she pulled her body away from his and sat a little stiffly beside him. He fondled her breast again, while he could still reach it: soon enough she'd hide them in that awful lacy thing. She let him, giving him an amused look.

"I don't know if there's enough chocolate on this entire ship," she said in a moment, but behind the amused facade her expression was a little shy again.

"I'm cheap," Ilias answered lightly. He was wondering if he should insist on her following through on the bargain at all. Even a joking bargain was a bargain, but he was aware that there was something delicate he was dancing blindly around, and he didn't know where to step to avoid it.

She laughed, and caught his hand as he let go of her breast. She held it between both of hers, evidently unsure of what to say. She probably wasn't exactly sure where the boundaries were either. "You're a genius, is what you are," she said. "Name your price."

He sat up on his elbows again and pulled her into his arms. She came willingly to lie beside him, not really looking at him but her face open and young and trusting. He kissed her jaw near her ear, and decided it was time to say something obnoxious that would make her act more like herself.

"I was starting to worry," he said. She glanced at him, questioning. "I thought maybe Rienish women don't come."

She blinked, which was not the answer he'd been looking for, and he wondered if maybe the spell that had taught her Syrnaic was missing that word. He'd no idea what the Rienish one was. He was about to give up on the joke when she laughed a little ruefully, still shy.

"So was I," she admitted, and it struck him suddenly with great force that not a lot of people had this sort of leverage over Tremaine Valiarde.


End file.
